MBA interviews with other applicants: Wharton and IESE
Two schools evaluate you alongside other applicants. Wharton's Team-Based Discussion puts you with five or six other applicants, working toward one response to a prompt, followed by a short one-on-one. IESE may invite shortlisted candidates to an Assessment Day of group exercises, alongside a conventional interview.
What is being watched is not whether your idea wins. It is how you work with people you have just met, against the clock, when each of them has something at stake.
The schools
| School | Who interviews | What they have read | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wharton | Admissions team, after a group discussion | Not known | 35 minutes + 10 |
| IESE | Admissions or alum | Not known | 45–60 minutes |
Unmarked entries are from the school’s own site. * Reported by applicants; the school does not say so itself. “Not known”: neither says. Each school’s page has the detail and the links.
How to prepare
- Prepare the prompt properly, then hold it loosely: arrive with two or three ideas you can build on, not one you need to win.
- Listen and build. Naming someone else's point and taking it further is leadership that a group can see.
- Watch the clock for the group rather than for yourself; helping it reach an answer counts.
- Prepare the one-on-one as well. At Wharton it is ten minutes, reflecting on the discussion you have just had.
What Dean rehearses
Dean cannot rehearse the group part: one interviewer cannot stand in for a room of applicants. What it rehearses is the one-on-one.
Start a mock interviewSee a sample report
Other kinds of MBA interview: Interviews where they have read your application · Blind interviews with students and alumni · Behavioral interviews · Alumni interviews, often in your own country. Every school.